Until They're Older
by Redonkadonk
Summary: Half Rusty/Pearl fluff, half brown-nosing coaches. And a whole lotta awkward!


_Author's Notes: My first fanfic! I've never really been a fanfic-writing kind of person, to be honest; I really liked reading fics more than writing them (probably because I get mild war flashbacks from writing essays in high school, despite having mildly great luck in English/writing classes when really motivated). But I think it says a lot about the love one has for a fandom when you get that feeling of "Hey... I wanna write a fanfic about this stuff" for the first time._

_But me and one of my friends on Tumblr were talking and sharing headcanons about Starlight, and at one point, something was mentioned, and I was like "Well damn, I wanna see more about that". And so that's basically how this fanfic came to be. It's not totally explicit in its topic, but the general gist of what's being talked about is there, I think..._

* * *

"Oh girls, it was so lovely! The water in the river was so clear, you could see all the fish swimming around!"

Pearl had just come back from a run with her boyfriend Rusty, and was telling her friends about all that happened, from the sights they'd seen to the people they'd met. Two of the girls, Dinah and Buffy, sat with a cup of coffee in their hands, while the third, Ashley, had a cigarette in her lips. "I wish we had stayed longer, but we needed to leave before the storm clouds rolled in. Maybe sometime we can go back, and you and Greaseball can join us, Dinah!"

"Ah reckon we might sometime," Dinah replied, giggling at the thought of being with her friend and their boyfriends on a double date, "but me and Greasy would be jus' fine right here for the time bein'."

Ashley leaned back in her chair. "Gosh, with the way you two stick to each other whenever possible, I'm surprised you two aren't already living together!"

"Well, we've talked about it, but we're waiting until we're older to do that." Pearl lightly blushed; she'd love to live with him, but they weren't quite to the point where they could afford a better place to live together in.

Buffy laughed as she moved to fill her cup with more coffee. "If they did that, we'd never be able to sleep. Gosh, I bet we'd be able to hear you two from across the trainyard into the wee hours of the night!"

Pearl blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know what she means!" Ashley nodded her head. "Surely you've already gone and buttered your muffin, right?" Her response was met with a look of confusion from Pearl and a look of downright horror from Dinah. It only took a few seconds to realize what this implied. "…. Oh my Starlight… are you still a virgin? Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry we-"

"A virgin?!" Buffy nearly dropped the coffee pot onto the floor. "You mean to tell me you and Rusty really haven't done it yet? I thought for sure y'all would've done _something_ by now!"

"W-well it's not that big a deal, girls," Dinah tried to calm things down. "Maybe they're just savin' that for when they move in together… or get hitched! Right, Pearl?" She looked towards the observation car for an answer. Any answer, really.

Pearl's face got red with embarrassment, realizing just what they were talking about. "Uh, well….. We r-really haven't… talked about doing it?"

Buffy took a deep breath and sat down beside the girl in pink, resting an arm around her shoulder. "Now now, it's okay. Maybe it's a bit much to think of right now… But y'know… there's lots of other much more interesting things y'all can do than just doing it the 'normal' way, hm?"

* * *

Meanwhile, Rusty was at the freight yard at that time, hanging out with his own group of friends. They had also been talking about the day's events and had just finished their conversation when the pink-clad girl rolled up and hugged the steam train from behind, making him slightly jump and getting a laugh out of Flat-top, a brick truck, and Dustin, a aggregate hopper.

"Oops! Did I scare you?" Pearl giggled, resting her head on his back.

The young steamer took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. "Y-yeah, you kinda did.." After exchanging more words saying his goodbyes to the two freight boys, Rusty and Pearl rolled off for some alone time before the day ended. Still mulling over what she had learned earlier, it took a good bit of courage for her to ask a question that had soon formed after leaving the freight yard.

"Um… H-hey Rusty…."

"Yeah, Pearl?" His face was still dirty from the earlier run, but Pearl liked that about him, that he looked cute even with all the soot on his face

".. U-uh…. I was wondering.."

"About what?" Rusty wondered as they stopped rolling. Normally she'd be talking about whatever the girls chatted about; what could she be thinking about now?

"….. I was wondering…. W-what all do you know about sex?"

Mortified. Rusty was _mortified_. They hadn't talked about doing anything during the time they'd been together; it never really crossed his mind while he was with her, and he had secretly hoped it never crossed hers. But being an boy engine, many would think he cared for that type of thing, so it had become a pretty common topic to hear. A topic that most of the guys lived to talk about. Since getting with Pearl, Greaseball (very experienced) and Flat-top (surprisingly experienced) had decided that Rusty should learn a thing or two from them for the eventual day that he and Pearl finally did make it that far.

Unfortunately for Rusty, they also had the same problem as Buffy did; going way too far into detail.

"… U-uh…. I… well…..," Rusty was nervous and turning red; he struggled to find an answer that wouldn't sound too strange, but couldn't find a way to successfully change the subject. "W-where's this coming from all of a sudden?"

"Well, it just kinda….. came up today…" Pearl's face was turning red as well; she didn't expect Rusty to react quite so oddly to the question. "But Buffy told me so much, and it all sounded so…. odd…."

"….I can't say I'm surprised….."

"… But they said it's not that scary once you get used to it, right?….. Right?" Pearl looked over to Rusty to see that his face was about as red as the Red Caboose himself. Slowly it dawned on her that he might be in the same boat as her… "Oh Rusty…"

"I'm fine….," he managed to squeak out. "It's just…." Pearl pulled him over into a hug, her head resting on his shoulder.

"It's okay… You don't have to say anything," Pearl cooed, then stood on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, "Let's wait until we're a bit older before we do anything, okay?

".. Yeah, that's sounds like a good idea."


End file.
